On March 29, the Moon is going to enter perigee – the point in its elliptical orbit that brings it closest to Earth.
This is known as a supermoon, famous for appearing in the sky as a larger-than-usual luminous orb, and presenting some excellent astrophotography opportunities.
Here’s the kicker, though: The March 29 supermoon is during the Moon’s new phase, when its night side is directly facing Earth. It will be completely dark, visible only in regions where the night sky isn’t drowned out by artificial illumination on Earth’s surface.
New supermoons don’t usually make the news, but the March 29 event is special. On the same day, the Northern Hemisphere will experience a partial solar eclipse, when the Moon passes in front of the Sun, partially obscuring its disk.
The result of this will be a rarely-seen crescent Sun, bearing resemblance to a set of horns in the sky. Such an eclipse is usually referred to as a ‘devil horn’ eclipse.
Supermoons are actually pretty common, a quirk of the changing distance between Earth and the Moon.
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The average distance between the two bodies is 384,400 kilometers, or 238,855 miles. But the shape the Moon traces around Earth is not a circle; it’s an oval, which means sometimes it is closer (perigee) and sometimes it is farther (apogee).
The mean distance of perigee is 363,396 kilometers. The mean distance of apogee is 405,504 kilometers.
There are around 12 to 13 lunar perigees every year… but not every perigee is a supermoon. Although there is no precise astronomical definition for the term ‘supermoon’, it’s only used to describe the full or new Moon at perigee.
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The full supermoon is the one that gets all the attention, for good reason. Although new supermoons are more frequent – 2025 has five new supermoons, compared to three full supermoons – they’re not easy to see, because the new Moon is the dark phase of the Moon, when its night side turns towards Earth, and all we can see is a dim shadow against the sky, if we see anything at all.
This time, there will be something to see during the day of March 29. There are actually three things occurring, and they are not quite simultaneous. The peak of the new Moon will take place on March 29 at 10:58 UTC. The peak of perigee, at which point the Moon will be 358,128 kilometers from Earth, will take place on March 30 at 05:26 UTC.
The time of greatest eclipse will be close to the new Moon, at 10:47:18 UTC. The shadow cast by the Moon will sweep up from northwest Africa, across the northeastern US, eastern Canada, Greenland, and parts of Europe and Russia.
If you’re not in any of these places, you can watch it live via the Royal Museums Greenwich livestream, embedded below.
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The three remaining new supermoons of 2025 will take place on April 27, May 27, and June 25. Sadly, there are no solar eclipses on those dates, although there will be a partial eclipse on 21 September that will be visible from New Zealand and Antarctica.
We won’t see a full supermoon until October 7, when the Harvest Supermoon will be at 361,458 kilometers from Earth. The closest supermoon of 2025 will be the Beaver Supermoon of November 5, at a distance of 356,980 kilometers. Finally, the Cold Supermoon of December 4 will come to a distance of 357,219 kilometers.
Mark those dates down if you want to see the Moon sitting in the sky like a glossy, gleaming, well-fed spider in a web of stars.
Meanwhile, we hope we have now answered the age-old question: if a supermoon supers and no one sees it, is it still a supermoon? Maybe we are all secretly super, in our own way.
